Trump administration working to return migrant hastily deported to Mexico after resisting similar court orders in other cases

By Tierney Sneed, CNN

(CNN) — US immigration officials are “working” on flying back a Guatemalan migrant who says he was wrongly deported to Mexico, according to new court filings, in what appears to mark the first time the Trump administration has made plans to bring back a migrant after a judge ordered the administration to facilitate their return.

Phoenix-based immigration officials are “currently working with ICE Air to bring O.C.G. back to the United States on an Air Charter Operations (ACO) flight return leg,” the Justice Department said in the Wednesday court filing, referring to the pseudonym the migrant is using in the case.

US District Judge Brian Murphy, who sits in Boston, ordered O.C.G.’s return last week. The case that Murphy is overseeing concerns the deportation of migrants to “third countries,” or nations that are not their home country.

After entering the US and being deported a first time, the Guatemalan man reentered the US again in 2024, at which point he sought asylum, having suffered “multiple violent attacks” in Guatemala, according to court documents.

On his way to the US during the second trip, O.C.G. said, he was raped and held for ransom in Mexico –– a detail he made known to an immigration judge during proceedings. In 2025, a judge ruled he should not be sent back to his native country, the documents say.

Two days after the judge ruled he should not be removed to Guatemala, the government deported him to Mexico, according to Murphy’s order. O.C.G. had claimed in the case that he had not been given the opportunity before his deportation to communicate his fear of being sent to Mexico and that his pleas before his removal to speak to an attorney were rejected. The government had been arguing in the case that O.C.G. had communicated to officials before his removal that he had no fear about being deported to Mexico. But recently, the government had to back down from that claim, acknowledging that it could not identify an immigration official who could substantiate that version of events.

Before Murphy’s ruling, O.C.G. filed a declaration that said he was now in Guatemala, where he has been “living in hiding, in constant panic and constant fear.”

CNN’s Karina Tsui contributed to this report.

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